The invention deals with a roof construction for vehicles, including a main body having a roof aperture, a multipart lid assigned to the roof aperture, which lid is moved between a closed position that completely fills the roof aperture and an open position that exposes the roof aperture by pivoting the lid parts outwardly. The lid parts are essentially configured as elongated rectangles that are hinged to one another to form at least one pair so that when folded together upwardly the lid parts are displaceable parallel to oppositely located edges of the roof aperture, the lid parts being displaceably guided on guide rails by means of guide sockets articulated with the lid parts, which guide rails are oriented parallel to the other pair of oppositely located edges of the roof aperture, while being positioned beneath the lid parts being fastened to the main body of the vehicle roof.
Such a vehicle roof is known from PS 639 479, in which the longer sides of the cover or lid part are oriented transversely to the longitudinal axis of the vehicle, so that the roof is open or closed by displacing the lid parts towards the rear or the front on rails extending in the direction of the longitudinal axis. There the lid parts fold to form a package transversely to the longitudinal axis and protruding upwardly, which package generates considerable air resistance when traveling. Furthermore, this package of folded lid part pairs has a number of gaps opened towards the top due to the spacing between the individual folded lid part, pairs, whereby air vortices and with this undesirable wind noises are caused. Because of the transverse arrangement of the lid parts, many lid parts, and long displacement travel of the lid parts linked to each other by articulated arms, are necessary in roof apertures having a considerable length. In addition, the known vehicle roof is to be actuated by pulling or pushing, which complicates the operation. Finally, a seal is provided at one of the lid parts for the purpose of sealing the lid part at each joint, so that sealing with the roof closed depends on the precise edge engagement of the overlapping lid parts and is already locked with a slight dislocation or misalignment of the lid parts to each other.